© 2005 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
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In 1953, the United States Department of Defense was conducting a series of nuclear weapons tests called Operation Upshot-Knothole. During this operation, eleven nuclear devices of varying yields were exploded at the Nevada Test Site, about sixty-five miles north of Las Vegas. Among those atomic explosions was a test called Shot Grable, where the U.S. Army tried out its new toy, nicknamed “Atomic Annie.”
Annie was a 280 millimeter portable artillery piece, able to fire her 800 pound shells a distance of about seven miles. But the thing that made her really special was the fact that her shells packed a nuclear payload with the equivalent destructive power of 15,000 metric tons of TNT.
The test area had been prepared in advance by plugging trees into large holes drilled in the ground, and by scattering vehicles, buildings, railroad cars, bridges and other equipment at varying distances from the blast site in order to study the amount of damage that occurred. Seventeen days earlier, a twenty-seven kiloton nuclear device codenamed Shot Encore had been exploded over the same general vicinity, at a height of about 2800 feet.
History’s first atomic artillery shell explosion, Shot Grable, occurred on May 25, 1953. Annie’s 15-kiloton shell burst with precision accuracy over the designated target area, about 500 feet above the ground. Surprisingly, even though the yield was only about half that of Encore, it did a great deal more damage. This is because the shell caused a very abnormal destructive waveform called a “precursor.”
A precursor is a very strong dynamic wind caused by the shell’s oblique angle of approach, and its high horizontal speed. The nuclear explosion essentially inherits the shell’s forward momentum, which sweeps across the landscape causing extensive drag damage in addition to the typical destruction. For instance, a jeep which had been left virtually untouched by the much more powerful Encore device was completely torn apart by the artillery blast, and thrown a distance of about 500 feet.
Twenty of these artillery cannons were manufactured in the early 1950s as well as eighty of its artillery warheads, but Atomic Annie was later replaced by smaller, lower-yield alternatives. In 1991, the U.S. withdrew all of its nuclear artillery shells from service, and Russia did the same in 1992. Shot Grable was the only nuclear artillery shell ever actually fired by the United States.
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It is just so much more versitile to shoot a nuke in the form of a missile and forget about it. Pretty neat though how the precursor shockwave was created by the angle of the shells trajectory. I wonder if that was a unexpected surprize or was it factored in?????
This platform is currently in the museum at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. I drive by it every day going to and from work.
I wonder if that was a unexpected surprize or was it factored in?????”
Most likely factored in. The speed of rounds fired from attack planes were known to inherit the speed of the plane. (Much like throwing a coke bottle from a car at 60 mph.)
I happen to have an 8.6MB movie file (2m2s long clip) of that explosion and it’s devastating results, would anyone be interested in getting it? And how do I share?
Post it somewhere at youtube or any other free file sharing service. Damninteresting.com is already going through some hosting issues so i don’t think they can put it here.
I saw that thing in Trinity and Beyond:The Atomic Bomb Movie. The music score is very good. Imagine building a nuclear powered nuclear warhead launcher! Damn that would go far.
“Imagine building a nuclear powered nuclear warhead launcher! Damn that would go far.” /i_love_nukes
have you ever heard about submarines?
nevermind, you meant that the missile itself was supposed to be nuclear powered.
shandar said: “nevermind, you meant that the missile itself was supposed to be nuclear powered.”
http://www.nuclearspace.com/
The book “To The End Of The Solar System” is an excellent primer on nuclear thermal rockets, while the article on the site about the Pratt & Whitney Triton is a look at the current state of the art.
….hmmm, let’s think about this for a moment….
– persons running in/out of Chernobyl after the reactor blew up were exposed to radiation…several died.
– persons exposed to bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were exposed to radiation…and died (or burned or otherwise marked for life).
So, what happens to the personnel that go out after test explosions to evaluate the damage, measure the explosive force, etc? Hope those folks had a good medical benefit program! (…I doubt it!)
errna, if you do host that movie at YouTube or somewhere else, drop us line here and let us know. Would love to see it. thx
another viewpoint said: “….So, what happens to the personnel that go out after test explosions to evaluate the damage, measure the explosive force, etc? Hope those folks had a good medical benefit program! (…I doubt it!)”
That’s why they make lead-lined radiation suits. Scientists have learned quite a lot since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ;)
This is probably just my ignorance showing, but I’m surprised a missile nuke still makes a straight up-and-down mushroom cloud… I guess I expected it to bloom at an angle.
I don’t know much about the science of it, but I suspect the mushroom cloud has more to do with the fact that heat rises, rather than the angle of impact.
take a look at the picture provided and honestly tell me that it actually looks like a mushroom
I’m sure most Americans wouldn’t be so in favour of nukes if they knew about the long-term persistence of fall-out in their own back yard, never mind the rest of the world.
It was launched from only 7 miles? That may seem like a lot of distance, but I wonder how high the radiation dose was that the artillery crew received. I know I would not want to be within 7 miles of a nuclear explosion.
perrymichaela said: “It was launched from only 7 miles? That may seem like a lot of distance, but I wonder how high the radiation dose was that the artillery crew received. I know I would not want to be within 7 miles of a nuclear explosion.”
That’s a good point. If I remember anything from World War Two history and all the advertising of the time (“Duck… And Cover” Anyone??), the instant death and certain death by radiation zones of a bomb the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima were up to 60km (37.5 miles) away. Being only 7 miles away from a blast seems like a really stupid idea.
War… pfft.
I love watching stuff blow up, like most guys I know. These things are included. I always thought this was craziness – even a little 15 kiloton nuke threw a bunch of radioactive crap up in the air, didn’t it? I assume 7 miles was understood to be outside the area of influence of a small nuclear weapon or the period, I suppose, but I grew up with duck and cover drills and full-frontal imagery of the “Big One” scorching out my eyeballs. Am I left with an irrational fear? Arachnophobia is fear of spiders – is there a technical term for fear of nuclear holocaust?
Hmm. “assholepoliticiansaphobia” comes to mind. Then again, with nukes, maybe “commensenseaphobia” is the ticket. I never feared the bomb. Nixon scared the crap out of me, though.
And there was the Damned Interesting article a few weeks ago on Project Babylon: http://www.danginteresting.com/?p=548. I still wonder about the physics of firing a nuclear warhead out of a cannon. Somehow I recall this shot was made remotely (I’d hate to be the poor f@#ker who had to pull the lanyard on that shot, I said about Babylon), but it’s incredible to me there was a big “bang” follow a while after by a much bigger nuclear “boom”, rather than just one big “boom” the moment they pulled the trigger.
The other one is at the Rock Island Arsenal in Rock Island, IL. Used to climb on it and play when I was a kid.
Dandy piece of playground equipment!
The U.S.A., U.K., France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea*, Israel*, and Iran* have nuclear weapons. *Unconfirmed.
To clarify a couple of the earlier “sightings”, “Atomic Annie”, the one and only, is on permanent display at the Ft. Sill Museum. The more common, purely conventional M65 280-mm Gun can be found on display at Rock Island Arsenal and the Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD.
But, if you thought 7 miles was too close for this nuke, you should look into some of the early rockets, like the Little John, whose lethal area was greater than the maximum range. Are nukes bad? Not necessarily, but talk of employing them without an understanding of what you’re dealing with is.
During the 1950s, while we developed this, the Soviets came up with a couple of even larger systems, also to deliver nukes. Whether or not you view current nuclear policy as enlightenend or even sensible, we are much better off now than we were in these days, when we were giving nukes to almost everyone on the battlefield. For an interesting read, look at “Dropshot” by Anthony Cave Brown.
i_love_nukes said: “I saw that thing in Trinity and Beyond:The Atomic Bomb Movie. The music score is very good. Imagine building a nuclear powered nuclear warhead launcher! Damn that would go far.”
http://www.danginteresting.com/?p=56
In the early 60’s I was flyin UH-1F’s for the Air force at Cheyenne. We were tasked to send a helicopter and pilot to participate in a nuclear blast. We had about 15 pilots and all of us wanted to go. The lucky winner departed and lucky him crashed in the mountains of Colorado and was not injured. I assume it would be a standoff flight to see how much radiation it would absorb during the blast. We were sure a gang of smart pilots. A couple of my buddies were statinoned in the Pacific flying helicopters and were participants in the various blast during all the unclear testing. I am not so sure I would want to go near them anymore. Wish I still had my docimeter to see just what it would read as I worked around nuclear B-47’s, B-52’s, Atlas, and Minuteman for many years. One time we had a spill of a deadly gas from the Atlas (liquid fuel) in Wichita. The gas cloud was so lethal it would kill anything almost instantly. I followed it in a helicopter radioing info back to our control center. Lucky us, the cloud moved to the southeast which was largely farmland and hit no houses before it dissiapated. If it had blown to the northwest it would have been over Wichita in a couple of minutes.
The Wing Commander and every key staff officer on the base was fired. Most people never knew how close to disaster we had come.
kwiksand said: “That’s a good point. If I remember anything from World War Two history and all the advertising of the time (“Duck… And Cover” Anyone??), the instant death and certain death by radiation zones of a bomb the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima were up to 60km (37.5 miles) away. Being only 7 miles away from a blast seems like a really stupid idea.
War… pfft.”
schuylercat said: “… I assume 7 miles was understood to be outside the area of influence of a small nuclear weapon or the period, I suppose, but I grew up with duck and cover drills and full-frontal imagery of the “Big One” scorching out my eyeballs.
Don’t know nothing ’bout bombings, but do remember the fear, the movies, and duck-n-cover drills in school. Never could figgure out how lineing up in a hallway with your butt in the air and your arms about your head was supposed to save you from the nuke. LOL, I figure the folks who dreamed up dunk-n-cover were thinking that if it hit you butt first, you wouldn’t have enough time to finish thinking OH SH….!!
Tink, I think that the duck-and-cover was more for an illusion of security than anything that could be effective.
More importantly, does anybody think it is wierd that they can make a bomb that kills people, and not a bomb that feeds people, wouldn’t that be great!!
The information about the forming of the precursor is incorrect. The shell’s velocity would not affect the formation of a precursor at all. The fireball expands so rapidly, any kinetic energy carried by the shell would be dissipated as the bomb debris is vaporized. Also, seeing as precursor effects were noted in other shots, such as Tumbler-Snapper shots, the precursor is not unique to AFAPs.
The real reason the precursor was caused was because of the low burst height. The explosion instantly heated up the air and ground in the vicinity, causing the ground to popcorn and creating a superheated ground-air layer. This heated ground air layer was more conductive to shockwave propagation and allowed the reflected wave to surpass the incident wave instead of creating a mach stem like normal. The results were a less defined overpressure, but a much stronger dynamic pressure.
They don’t explain the whole thing in Trinity and Beyond. You have to look at the DOE film Operation Upshot-Knothole, as it provides a much more in depth explanation.
Obligatory: “If you see a bug, nuke it!”
So when do we get nukes in hand grenade form?
Regarding the question about radiation exposure at 7 miles, there are three “sources” of “radiation” if you will from a nuclear explosion that bear discussion relating effects to humans. The first and most familiar is fallout, particles from the envirnoment and the vaporized weapon itself that are irradiated by the intense neutron flux of detonation and present within the nuclear fireball. This spreads out of an area and presents long term danger.
Second is thermal/visible radiation, this is the most immediate danger of a nuclear weapon (other than the blast). A vast amount of energy is converted into visible and thermal energy and will cause the vast majority of initial deaths and injuries due to burning etc, and the flash itself can cause blindness miles and miles away depending on yield.
Finally there is what you are referring to, prompt nuclear radiation, the “flash” of radiation that pulses along with thermal/visible energy at the moment of detonation. This is typically non consequential depending on the weapons yield. Why? Because for anything but the smallest of nuclear weapons (like the davy crockett etc) anyone within range of dangerous prompt nuclear radiation is likely already dead due to the thermal pulse or the nuclear blast. Radiation sickness is the least of your concerns when you are charred to a toasty crisp or blown several miles downrange of the detonation. The radiation flux is absorbed very readily by air, the thermal pulse and shockwave have greater range.
However the ratio between the range/danger of thermal pulse/shock wave and prompt nuclear radiation is related to the yield. For very small weapons like the davy crockett or the nuclear demolition munition the blast is small enough that the prompt radiation is actually the greatest danger. However these were TINY nukes compared to even a typical small tactical weapon.
In the case of this bomb, the prompt nuclear radiation at seven miles would have been a non issue, especially considering personal would be behind shelter and thus shielded from the pulse.
There are three of these Atomic Annie frames left in the world. One at Ft Sill OK at the museum, one at the Smithsonian and one at Freedom Park outside Ft Riley KS up on a hill just a few hundred feet from I -70. They had two semi type trucks, one in front and one in back that got them to there firing points. They were very cumbersome to move and often got stuck in the mud as they were very heavy. Thats one of the biggest reasons they are not around any longer, that and the advent of the 8″ round and the 155mm round more common to this day.
Anyone see the “Atomic Cafe” ? I think that’s the name- Horrifying footage of American soldiers told to march to ground zero. They rode it out in trenches like a quarter mile from the blast. There’s this awful footage of them standing up right after the flash of light, and with shocked/open mouths, sucking in all this horrible radioactive crap/debris/etc. Pigs left in houses exposed to the blast, and right afterwards they are filled with big tumors, scientists leaving canned goods in houses that are blasted and then sending in GIs afterwards to open and eat the contents. Probably the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. EVER.
I got curious and googled: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083590/
Disturbing!
There was ONE single person other than the aircrew of the Enola Gay that definitely saw and survived both explosions- he was farming 5 miles from the epicentre at Hiroshima when that was dropped, so decided to flee to his mothers – at Nagasaki. Three days later the train he was on was seven miles from Nagasaki when the send bonb went off.
One could feel justfied in feeling a little paranoid after that…..
My father was there and watched the test , He was in a trench with only eye protection and was covered in dust after the explosion .
He told quiet a few stories about it , They just dusted the men off and sent them back to the barracks .
Would like to talk to anybody else that was there , God Bless
Note to self: Finished.